The massive vault door appeared even more daunting today than the first time I’d seen it. Little puffs of steam and random sparks flew from the mechanism, as if the entire apparatus was aware the grimoire was near and was excited to be reunited.
Callum had gone into the forest to check on something Darragh had mentioned to him and had yet to return. The Woodsprie had been expanding a magical shield into the woodlands around the house to discourage the Eld from intruding too close. But something in the forest to the northwest kept breaking the barrier, so Callum had gone to investigate.
He wasn’t happy about it either. He grumbled all morning, arguing with Grams about whether or not the vault should be opened while he wasn’t in the house.
“It’s nothing but a load of books and papers in there,” Grams insisted. “Certainly nothing to fear. Your precious witch won’t come to any harm if she’s out of your sight for a few hours.”
He still wasn’t convinced by the time he left. I wasn’t sure if I was flattered he was so concerned, or ashamed he felt I couldn’t defend myself without him.
He wasn’t wrong, either. My time spent in the mausoleum yesterday had certainly increased my confidence to use magic, but I was far from skilled. I didn’t yet have the technique to use it confidently.
But as Grams said, I didn’t expect to find anything in a library that was particularly threatening. At worst, maybe there was another wraith hiding in there. As a precaution, she taught me a spell to conjure ripping winds, strong enough to tear a wraith to pieces. We practiced in the foyer before heading to the library, and Grams wasn’t satisfied until I could manifest the spell without even uttering the words.
It wasn’t easy, and my technique was sloppy. The magic I conjured was too strong, swiftly spiraling out of my control. The wind I summoned would often become a firestorm, swirling with hot licking flames that singed my hands.
“We have leather gloves somewhere in this house,” Grams said, as I winced at another blister on my palm. “Your great Aunt Cynthia was a skilled fire witch. Her things will likely fit you.”
“If I had better control, this wouldn’t happen,” I grumbled, applying ointment to my palms from a jar in the kitchen.
But Grams scoffed. “Fire is the most dangerous and difficult element to conjure. Even incredibly experienced witches still wear protective clothing to use it. Regardless of age and skill, mistakes will happen. Such is life.”
By the time I was standing in front of the vault, I was confident I could summon the spell if I needed it. With the grimoire clutched tightly in one hand and Grandma’s radio tucked under my arm, I stood before the massive sealed doors and took a deep, steadying breath.
Hopefully, beyond these doors lay the secret to destroying the God. We didn’t have the luxury of time to truly hone my skills; we needed a trump card, something to give me an advantage despite my limited experience.
Sybil had believed whatever was within this vault was worth protecting, even if it meant locking it away from her comrades. The thought filled me with anxious hope as I laid the palm of my hand against the door, and there was an audible click from within.
The gears turned faster, steam billowing out. Stepping back, my mouth hung open as the door trembled, then slid open, the massive metal vault splitting in two as it moved along invisible tracks set into the floor.
Darkness greeted me within. But as I stepped inside, two lanterns hanging on either side of the door flared to life, surrounding me in their flickering glow. I was standing on a metal platform, looking over the railing into the sea of darkness beyond. Metal stairs led down on my left, and I followed them as they curved along the stone wall. More lanterns lit as I passed them, slowly illuminating the room.
The space was shaped like a cylinder, with shelves set into the stone walls. Books were squeezed into every available space, along with piles of papers and hand-drawn maps. Dust motes drifted through the lantern light, and when my foot left the final step, a great chandelier overhead came to life. Two crescent-shaped desks were in the center of the room, facing each other like a ring split in half.
“It’s like someone was only just here,” I said, looking over the notes and open books on the desktop. A feather quill lay discarded upon a large sheet of yellowed paper, a sentence of Latin text left half-finished. I summoned a little flame in my palm, using it to illuminate the fading text.
“It has been demonstrated that aether causes significant damage to…to the…” I frowned, unfamiliar with the term scrawled before me. “Hellkite…”
“It is an old word for the creatures we now call gods,” Grams said, her voice echoing in the strangely quiet space. “It was long believed the gods originally came from Hell itself, like Reapers. Now it is known They came from somewhere else entirely. Another dimension, most likely.”
“But how?” There was a peculiar smell in here; beneath the soft odor of dust and old pages, there was a scent that cloyed in my throat, faint but unpleasant. Like old fish and stagnant water. “How is it possible for creatures to pass between dimensions?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t know.” My grandmother sighed, and I set the radio on the desk. “Perhaps we will find the answer here.”
A wide hallway with a low stone ceiling led out of the room, but I couldn’t see into the darkness within. Summoning another flame, I tried to send it floating down the hallway to illuminate my way, but it kept guttering out when it went more than a few feet in front of me.
“Damn it!” I hissed, accidentally burning my fingers. Putting them in my mouth, I said, “Do you know what’s down there?”
Grams replied, “Another study room, I believe.”
Lanterns came to life on the walls as I stepped down the hallway. Perhaps it was only my imagination, but their light didn’t cast as far as the ones in the first room did. The smell of stagnant water grew stronger.
Halfway down the hall, I paused. There was a room ahead of me, but I could see nothing within, darkness shrouding everything.
But I could hear something: a strange, rasping rumble. My footsteps sounded different too, and I realized it was because there was water on the floor. My boots splashed through a shallow puddle as I entered the larger room.
Lanterns flared to life, illuminating a strange structure in the center of the room. It was round, built of stone, about three feet tall. A bronze lid was affixed to the top with a single thick hinge. It was ajar, revealing the deep inky blackness of a narrow tunnel leading straight down. Thick metal rungs led into the dark, and I shuddered as I peered down.
“What the hell is this?” I whispered.
Seizing one of the lanterns from the wall, I held it over the tunnel. But its light didn’t reach the bottom. If there was anywhere in this vault to hide something top secret, it would be down there.
Tying the lantern to my belt, I shouted, “Grams! There’s a lower level back here! I’m going to check it out!” The radio crackled faintly, and a cool breeze rushed around me as I pulled back the bronze lid, opening it fully. The metal rungs were slippery as I made my way down, covered in a greenish-brown substance that looked like algae.
The air turned damp and cool the further I went. After climbing about twenty feet, I reached the bottom, and my boots were on solid ground once more. Holding up the lantern and encouraging its flame to brighten with a bit of magic, I peered into the gloom.
It was a cavern. A narrow tunnel in the far wall led deeper into the Earth, but I ignored that for now. Three simple wooden tables, stained and darkened with age, stood before a chalkboard covered with minuscule writing. Beakers, corked vials, and all manner of strange glass laboratory equipment covered the tables, with ancient pages of fading text scattered everywhere.
Stepping closer, I raised my light to examine the specimens floating in murky glass jars. Some of them looked like nothing more than mutated lumps of flesh, bulbous and discolored, covered in tiny bumps that looked like…eyeballs.
Another jar held the familiar skull of an Eld beast, its thick fur and jagged teeth still intact. Others held strips of seaweed covered in neon green pustules and similarly afflicted fish. Making my way to the end of the table, I came to a glass terrarium, sealed with a cork covered in red wax, filled with a cluster of pale mushrooms. A tangle of white threads extended around the glass like a web, and the threads were tangled thickly around the inside of the cork.
As if looking for a way out.
I had to narrow my eyes and step close to read the writing at all. Not all of it was in Latin; some of it was written in the strange runic script I’d first seen in the greenhouse. There were lists of herbs and minerals, with some crossed out and some circled. My eyes moved rapidly over the words, my excitement growing despite struggling to translate the messy writing.
…break the flesh barrier…infuse…poisonous to the Hellkite life force…
Sybil had been looking for a way to poison the God. And somewhere down here, amid all her research, I was certain she’d found it.
Sprinting for the ladder, I nearly slipped several times in my enthusiasm to reach the surface. As I scrambled out of the tunnel, I called, “Grams! You’re not going to believe this! I found —”
Thump.
The sound came from behind me, from somewhere deeper within the room. I envisioned a wet piece of meat slapping against the stone floor when I heard it.
Then came the scraping. A slow, wet rasping. As if something drenched and heavy were being dragged across the ground.
Turning, I peered between the tall shelves, searching the shadows. A cold feeling of dread prickled over my skull, and I was immediately certain I needed to get out of the vault.
But it was too late.
From between the shelves emerged a creature, the likes of which I’d never seen. It was big — easily ten feet long, and as tall as I was. It had a long, seal-like body and wriggled itself across the ground like a snake. It used clawed front limbs to drag itself forward, its pale pink flesh covered in slime that streaked across the stones. Its bulbous head was crowned with a cluster of eyeballs that looked like peeled grapes. Its mouth was agape, unable to fully close because of the massive needle-like teeth that jutted from its upper and lower jaws.
It was between me and the hallway. Its head bobbed about, making warbling vocalizations that turned my stomach. Backing away, one slow step at a time, I realized the creature seemed to be blind. None of its gray eyeballs focused on me…
At least, not until my foot caught on the edge of a table, jostling it and sending several books falling to the floor.
Then the creature lunged.
It moved far faster than I ever would have anticipated. It lashed out, one of its front limbs knocking painfully against my ribs and sending me sprawling to the floor. It kept coming, its jaw gaping open wide enough to swallow me whole. I seized everything I could get my hands on to throw at it: books, empty ink bottles, discarded candles. It whipped its thick body around, using its tail end like a cudgel to slam me against the wall.
Distantly, I could hear my grandmother calling to me from the radio, the static sharp as it drowned her words. My back was to the wall and there was no direction I could run. I lifted my hands in panic, sparks flying from my fingertips as pathetic poofs of flame billowed away from me.
Its jaws were descending, and there was no escape.
I needed a weapon. I needed fangs, as massive as this beast’s own teeth.
I wasn’t going to die in my own fucking house.
For a moment, it felt as if my head was splitting in two. My lower jaw was trying to rip itself off my body. I was screaming, and my vision flashed crimson.
In the blur of red, I lunged forward, acting on instinct alone. I snapped my aching jaw, again and again, drenching myself in more thick, wet, redness. I was aware of a horrible shrieking, and a smell that was as pungent as molten metal. Warmth filled my mouth and drenched down my front. I tasted rot and something sweet. Stretchy sinew ripped between my teeth —
And suddenly, arms were around me. A strength that I couldn’t overcome held me down as I thrashed, jaws still snapping pointlessly as the reddened world faded. My gasping breaths turned to sobs of confusion. The fury and terror that demanded I keep struggling receded, leaving me as weak and limp as a baby bird.
I recognized the stone-like arms clinging to me. I knew Callum’s voice as he spoke frantically in my ear, saying, “Calm down, Everly, calm down, it’s alright. It’s dead, you’ve killed it. You’re all right.”
